Here Today; Abroad Tomorrow

In New Zealand, Palino pays between $12 and $20 an hour for floor staff, much more than he paid in New York. But Palino admits that it's still not a great job for New Zealanders, who contribute much of their wages to taxes and get little, if any, tips.

Palino, however, has found major benefits in running a business in New Zealand. A dozen years ago, he was spending $50,000 a year in insurance for a single New York restaurant. Today in New Zealand, he spends about $12,000 annually in New Zealand dollars. His sanitation bills and utility bills are also lower.

Hit the Ground Running

Americans head abroad for different reasons -- Palino followed a woman; Carroll pursued a dream. Others simply can't pass up the chance to get in on the ground floor of a trend.

Hotel entrepreneur Hal Wright retired in 1997 after helping found and build several hundred hotels for the Extended Stay Hotels chain. Wright says he was unemployed when a friend asked him to fly down to Costa Rica and take a look at a tract of land.

On his second night in the Central American country, Wright called his wife to announce he had found "Margaritaville." The lure of "drop-dead gorgeous oceanfront real estate," coupled with the prospect of a growing market for American second-home buyers, proved too much for Wright to resist.

Wright and a partner now own 2,000 acres on which they're building sustainable, eco-friendly vacation homes with projected revenues of $400 million. "I began to see there was a real business on the coast of Coast Rica selling second homes to gringos," Wright says.

It can be difficult for business owners to adjust to new settings that are incongruent with their own backgrounds. But a foreign location can also offer benefits they never found in the United States.

Palino is constantly amazed by the relaxed nature of New Zealanders. Carroll is driven by the cultural and social rewards of living and working in Paris. And Wright? His biggest concern these days is whether to have fresh tuna or lobster for dinner.